Update 2

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Hi all,

As you already know we're in Penang at
the moment, we're staying in a little guesthouse/cafe/restraunt thing
in the centre of Georgetown (north east of Penang). The weather's
been lovely the last couple of days and we've been trekking
everywhere! The food here's pretty cool too, we went to a night
market this evening and experienced a few random thai/malaysian
dishes which was pretty fun. It's quite bizzare, you walk into this
courtyard full of food wagons crookedly standing around the perimeter
and a bunch of tables and chairs in the centre. You literally walk up
and point to whatever looks good! They had a bit of cheesy music
entertainment too.

The journey down well.... lets just say
it's a relief to be in Penang! We left Phi Phi island at 9 in the
morning by boat, meaning we had to wake up at 7 to be packed up and
at the reception, have food and get a taxi boat to the pier for 9. We
hardly slept during the night because of the sounds of the forest
behind us, god knows what was in there and it sounded like the people
next door were having trouble with some snakes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so,
well, urr we were kinda got through the night with one eye open and
one ear close to the wooden wall clasping our pillows and anything we
had to hand to shoo them away!! Anyway we didnt see a snake so we
were probably just being paranoid... Anyway we woke to hear what we
thought was a blitz on koh Phi Phi but it turned out that it was just
another monsoon.... great! I dont know if you looked at the viking
resort but to get to it it's pretty much a half mile trek through a
muddy, foresty, jungly sort of thing with the most uneven and steep
levels. It was hard enough to walk when it was dry without our
rucksacks on! How we got to reception without two broken ankles, half
a rucksack and a muddy bum we'll never know..... Anyway we hopped
(stumbled) onto the ferry back to krabi and then manage to wangle a
cheap ticket to Hat Yai (a transport hub between malaysia and
thailand).

The term “you get what you pay for”
has never been so true... we were herded onto some 10 year old mini
van with “air conditioning” well a whole in the roof with bits
falling down into your eyes (slight exaggeration but just to
emphasize how baaaad this van was). When you talk to a thai person,
never take his word for it. Make sure to ask him 3 times and you'll
get three different stories.... When you point this out they'll just
lie and tell you a fourth story... haha. We got into this van and
stopped 5-6 times on the way with Colin McRae in the driving seat. We
got there in 4 hours.... our deal was a direct journey in three
hours.... but thats thailand all over.

Hat Yai was a dive, we got off at a
travel agency where some aggressive thais begun to hassle us and ask
“where you go”, “where you go” “where you go”, “where
you go” “where you go”, “where you go” “where you go”,
“where you go” “where you go”, “where you go” “where
you go”, “where you go” “where you go”, “where you go”
“where you go”, “where you go” “where you go”, “where
you go” “where you go”, “where you go” “where you go”,
“where you go” (yes at least that many times!) until we ended up
at a place called “luck tours” where in hindsight we thought the
U and N had fallen off the sign.... Unlucky tours...... anyway
somehow after saying at least 3 dozen times “we will never get on a
bus or a van again” we ended up in a mini van heading to the
border. Hat Yai was a very poor place with little hygiene standards
and a horrible scent lingering around the city so we gathered the
sooner we get to Penang the better!

We got through the border fine and were
then on our way to Penang. We got to Penang at around 9pm and were
dropped on a street where our trusty book recommended a nice little
guest house called “Stardust”..... an original thai name.... We
dumped our bags and headed for FOOD! (didnt you notice we hadnt
mentioned the F word??? We hadnt eaten much since breakfast, yes mum
I know I'm sorry we'll prepare better next time!!! Anyway we ended up
in the closest place to the hostel that made anything edible which
turned out to be a very friendly reggae reggae bar with some good
tunes on! We both had sweet and sour chicken and two bottles of
crisp, cold, refreshing and VERY well deserved beers! We headed to
bed for a nice lie-in!

We got up sometime about noon and
walked out to the sunny street and headed for anywhere, no map, no
clue and no worries! We found a traveller's map and ended up in
another weird place it looked like someone had placed a giant tin
tent in the middle of the grass just short of the sea front which
must have covered the majority of a full size football pitch. Both
sides were lined with grotty food stalls and the centre was packed
full of local malayans. We decided to just get a drink here.. and
headed to the front for a typical walk... seems to be all we're doing
this holiday! We came back to the cafe in the hostel for food and
then headed for the botanical gardens.

Not that either of us have a particular
interest in plants or anything like that really it sounded good and
they had furry little monkeys! So we hopped on the number 10 bus and
headed for the botanical gardens. As soon as you walk in there's
monkeys EVERYWHERE, on the electricity poles and cables, on the
benches, the roads and the grass. We've got some great pictures feed
some hungry little fellow some BBQ chicken flavoured crisps! As cute
as they were they're pretty aggressive little things so we had to
stand a distance from some of them. A big difference between Malaysia
and Britain is that back home there would be giant signs, PA systems
and park wardens roaming round warning people of the monkeys, in
Malaysia it's common sense, if a monkey growls at you back off
because he doesnt want to play!

We got a bus half way to gurney plaza,
a massive 6 story and 2 basement shopping mall, Abbie was happy, Emyr
was not.... haha We then headed back to the guesthouse after waiting
20 minutes in the wrong bus stop, apparently you don't get on in the
same place you get off in Malaysia...

We got home, showered and headed back
out for some grub. We stumbled on the night market (as we mentioned
above) and had some quality malayan/thai food.

We're now in bed, shattered and ready
to fall asleep so we can fit in a standard BIG day tomorrow! Our
choices for tomorrow are either 1) Go to Snake Temple and see some
well... snakes, roaming around a temple we think 2) Tropical Fruit
Farm – to taste over 240 different types of tropical fruit or 3)
Chill out in Batu Feringgi – a nice little beach further west along
the coast with a nice little night market. Or maybe we'll just do all
3 knowing us.

Hope you appreciate the hours of
brain-boggling writing we've gone through to bring you this at the
end of yet another jam-packed day!

Watch this space for the next chapter
of our journey.

Lots of Love

Abbie Chivers (editor) and Emyr Thomas
(author)

P.S.

Everything we've written about is in
good humour and slightly (ONLY slightly) exaggerated despite how
negative we've written it. We're having a wonderful time and are
looking forward to each day!!